Cutaneous Leishmaniasis

One Chinese construction worker and a Chinese cook experienced unknown insect bites during their stay in Abha of Saudi Arabia and then developed skin ulcers. After returning to Taiwan, Republic of China, they were diagnosed in our hospital as having cutaneous leishmaniasis on clinical and dermatopathologic grounds. We were successful in culturing the Leishmania organism with Tobie medium and liquid metacyclic stage culture medium from the skin ulcers of these two patients. The electron microscopic findings of the parasites, Leishmania tropica, both in the tissue (amastigote) and in the cultured medium (promastigote), were also reported.